


hello, my friend, are you visible today?

by Eisoj5



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017), Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, M/M, Minor Galen Erso/Bodhi Rook, Minor Luke Skywalker/Biggs Darklighter, Soulmarks, Soulmates, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-16
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2019-02-15 10:19:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13028973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eisoj5/pseuds/Eisoj5
Summary: Soulmarks, Luke thought, were a strange sort of hope in an otherwise arbitrary and cruel galaxy.





	hello, my friend, are you visible today?

**Author's Note:**

> THERE IS A PRETTY MASSIVE SPOILER FOR THE LAST JEDI IN THIS FIC. I AM NOT KIDDING AROUND HERE FOLKS, DON'T READ IT IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE SERIOUSLY, SERIOUSLY SPOILED.

Soulmarks, Luke thought, were a strange sort of hope in an otherwise arbitrary and cruel galaxy. The words appeared out of nowhere, completely at random, and there was no way to know what they meant. Some were the first words your soulmate ever spoke to you; there were a lot of holos about soulmates with _baby talk_ , signifying they'd been destined to be together for life. Some were the first words you ever heard your soulmate say, regardless of their intended recipient.

And then there were those who got the exact opposite: the last words you heard your soulmate say. Or, worse, the last words your soulmate _ever_ said.

Of course, people lived whole lives ignoring the different ways their soulmarks manifested; it might be too crushing not to. And there were whole orders of faith built around the belief that you had the last words, that you’d get it right in the end. That the Force had led you to the person you belonged with. There were deathbed holos about that, too, and awful ones about breakups that were only supposed to be temporary, but then the soulmate _died_ , and you never—

He usually shuts those holos off pretty soon into the story. It gets so you can tell which words they are real quick.

Aunt Beru was far too practical for any of that, of course, keeping her sleeves rolled down for both the sake of Tatooine’s twin suns and so that no one knew her words. Luke thinks they must not have been the first words, then, if she'd married Uncle Owen anyway.

Luke likes the holos where people go looking, traveling to the most crowded spaceports, learning dozens of languages just in case they'd gotten a translation. The ones where they try to _find_ their soulmate rather than waiting for the Force to deliver. Because if you got the last kind, you'd never know, would you? And living without ever knowing—well, Luke’s already got _that_ happening, the way Uncle Owen refuses to talk about Luke’s father, and just says that his mother's words were “You were right.”

Which, well, _anyone_ could say that. First, last, whatever. Not like Luke's words, which show up when he turns fifteen, a scrawling bracelet around his left wrist in a messy hand. His words include a _name,_ even if it's not _his_ and they're very clearly directed at someone.

Luke tries the name on for a few weeks, a brief, delirious time spent attempting to get Biggs to say it. Pouts and refuses to show Biggs the words, wanting it to be _real_ and organic, not like the holos where people just read it off your arm and pretend to feel something. But Biggs doesn't like the name and never, ever says his words.

And then Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru die, without Luke ever knowing if _they'd_ known, or found out there at the end, facing down the Empire. And Luke goes off to find a princess, and winds up with a smuggler and a Wookiee and two droids. Gives Han Solo the wrong name, at first, curious, but Obi-wan Kenobi shoots him a raised eyebrow and he sheepishly tells Han, and later, Leia, that he’s Luke.

It’s not until Luke officially joins up with the Rebellion that he gets a clue, after the Death Star. And then, shortly after that: an answer.

He’s working on his brand-new-old X-wing, stripped to his undershirt, flightsuit hanging around his waist, when Mon Mothma, of all people, happens by, on her way off-world to someplace safer than the planet that the Empire had nearly destroyed once already. She makes small talk, or what passes for it when she’s trying to hold together the remnants of the Rebellion he’d saved on the strength of his name and the wild improbability of what he’d done. And then she tilts her head sideways, and a strange look crosses her face as she murmurs the words plainly visible on Luke’s wrist.

“Did you know him?” Luke asks, eagerly.

“I might have,” Mon Mothma allows. Her eyes are solemn. “But—Luke, if that name belongs to who I think it does, your soulmate is already dead.”

His heart sinks at the thought of being given the _last_ words. Of being just like the people in the absolute saddest of the holos, grieving a love he’d never know. “Tell me,” he says, anyway.

She shakes her head. “I’ll do better than that. Come,” and she leads him into the war room, even dimmer than usual as people pack up the lighted displays. But the holotable is still present, and Mon Mothma moves swiftly to touch a few tabs, bringing up a file on a sad-eyed man in his fifties.

“That’s not my soulmate,” Luke says, immediately.

“No. This is the man whose name is in your words, I think,” Mon Mothma says. “And his daughter.” She touches another key, and the face of a tense-looking young woman about Luke’s own age appears beside her father’s, her name scrolling out in Aurebesh underneath. “It’s possible—”

“Not her,” Luke says, shaking his head. “She would have called him _father_ , not by his name, don’t you think? And—” He hesitates, just for a moment, but it’s not like the _Rebellion_ will give a damn. “And—I’ve only ever been interested in guys. Men.”

Mon Mothma’s hand hovers over the holotable. “Then there is one other possibility,” she says, even more somberly. “But he died on the same mission.”

Luke swallows back sudden tears. He’d been so close, then, though there was _no_ way he would’ve found himself at the Rebellion in time to meet—

“Bodhi Rook was a defector,” Mon Mothma says, and an Imperial security holo ID of a handsome, wide-eyed man appears over the table. “He couldn’t stop talking about Galen Erso when our Intelligence agents debriefed him.”

Luke can’t tear his eyes from the man’s face. “Was he—I mean, did you ever see—” There are plenty of people in pairs or trios who wind up with mixed words; someone’s last, someone’s first. It’s impossible, of course, that Bodhi Rook could have ever heard Luke speak, unless he’d ever docked at Anchorhead for some reason. But he has to know, even if it’s too late to do anything about it.

“He wore an Imperial flightsuit the entire time he was with the Rebellion,” Mon Mothma says. “I don’t think anyone here ever knew what they would’ve been.” She lifts her head to meet Luke’s gaze, her eyes clear and luminous as Leia’s. “I hope it’s not him, but if it _was_ , he was a good man. He gave his life to make it possible for you to do what you did.”

“Oh,” Luke chokes out, clutching the edge of the holotable. “Oh, _stars.”_

“I’m sorry,” Mon Mothma says, very softly, and leaves him alone with the ghost of what might have been.

Luke learns everything he can about Bodhi Rook and the Rogue One team, after that. He’d heard bits and pieces of the story, coming into the Rebellion when he had, but _now_ he wheedles it all out of anyone who’ll give him anything.

They don’t put up much of a fight, not when he explains _why_ ; Luke’s living their worst blasted nightmare, after all. The least they can do is give him impressions to hold onto. How Bodhi had backed up Jyn Erso in the Council meeting when no one wanted to trust an Imperial pilot. How he’d whisked the team off to Scarif in a twice-stolen Imperial shuttle. How he’d been the one to set up the final relay of the all-important Death Star plans, the plans that had brought Luke to the Rebellion.

He isn’t a holovid director, but if he _was_ —

No. It’s not a holo. There are some things you can’t know until you’ve lived it.

Luke’s also not a historian, but there are some, with the Rebellion. His soulmate might be dead, but Luke makes _certain_ that his name is never forgotten.

*****

Bodhi wants it to be Galen, for a while. Is almost sure it has to be: there’s no one else of what he thinks might be an appropriate age difference, for the words in a graceful sweep up his arm. But they’re not first words, he knows that much; they sound like _breakup_ words, which is unpleasant, but he could live with that.

Maybe.

And then Jyn and Cassian come running for the cargo shuttle on Eadu _without_ Galen, and it’s terrible, trying to get up the courage to ask Jyn what her father had said at the end, when she’s already in shock and furious at Cassian. Bodhi does, though, stammering and more than a little worried she’ll strike him; his words seem like the kind of thing a father might say to his child, even if Galen hadn’t seemed the type to be quite so casual.

Jyn looks at him strangely, and Bodhi gulps and tries to look her straight in the eye.

“He said—he said he had so much to tell me,” Jyn says, and her face crumples, and Bodhi’s heart breaks for her, but not _entirely_ for himself.

There’s still a chance.

And then there _isn’t_ , but he’s done all he can, given _everything_ he had, all for a man he thought he could have loved—

“This is for you, Galen,” Bodhi says, and then there is only light.

*****

And then, many years later, holding forth against the return of the darkness:

Luke looks at his nephew across the vastness of space and says, in grief and love and joy, knowing his time has come at long last—“See you around, kid.”

*****

And _then,_ somewhere in the infinite kindness of the Force:

“Hi,” Bodhi Rook says.

“Hi,” Luke Skywalker says, and he smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> To be perfectly honest, I've had this idea for a soulmarks fic for months and months, maybe even as far back as February. The original idea was to use the " _last_ words someone EVER says, regardless of whether you hear them, are your soulmark" and have Luke saying, "Who the hell is _Galen?"_ and going from there to explore how you might go about preserving the memory of someone you never knew. 
> 
> But I shelved it, because of two things: 1) I was (and am) working on kind of this other substantial project, and 2) I didn't know what was going to happen in The Last Jedi. I was terribly afraid I would be able to write Bodhi's side.
> 
> It turns out I was right to wait.
> 
> I have thoughts on The Last Jedi, of course. I saw it last night; I plan to see it again, and I'll fucking cry just as much. And no matter what stories are told about him, or how the GFFA chooses to remember _his_ legend, I will always love Luke Skywalker. 
> 
> Thanks to morag for the title and the assurance that _you are all going to scream at me for this_ *flees*


End file.
